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An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Consumerist:
"Comcast and proposed merger partner Time Warner Cable claim they don't compete because their service areas don't overlap, and that a combined company would happily divest itself of a few million customers to keeps its pay-TV market share below 30%, allowing other companies that don't currently compete with Comcast to keep not competing with Comcast. This narrow, shortsighted view fails to take into account the full breadth of what's involved in this merger — broadcast TV, cable TV, network technology, in-home technology, access to the Internet, and much more. In addition to asking whether or not regulators should permit Comcast to add 10-12 million customers, there is a more important question at the core of this deal: Should Comcast be allowed to control both what content you consume and how you get to consume it?"

Does not mean that it is a good idea. Why would anyone want the company called the worst company in the world to take over another company? Time warner is not great by any stretch of the imagination, but comcast makes them look like gold

unfortunately, they already do... the relative ease at which comcast was able to take over nbcuniversal is proof that the government regulators and legislators really dont give a shit about the people.. but only big business and big campaign contributions. the present comcast should be broken into 3-5 pieces, but that'll never happen.

No. They should not, and despite anything they may try to convince Capital Hill and the U.S. populace of, that's exactly what they're trying to do, and that's precisely what will happen. It not only should be blocked from happening, Comcast should be required to break up into smaller companies, just like the phone company was required to in previous decades, but in this case the reasons to do so are even more dire than just them having a mere monopoly on a market.

So we are heading into the world of Max Headroom [maxheadroom.com] at an alarming pace. We are almost there, Detroit is there already. The merge of Comcast and Time Warner Cable will become Network XXIII.

Never EVER think that switching something over to the private sector would make it cheaper to you. Yes, government isn't great at running stuff, but what makes you think that a private company would offer it cheaper to you rather than pocketing what they can cut in slack?

And not always is slack a bad thing. Usually it's redundancies that ensure availability. For reference, see internet.

Comcast is NOT a private sector entity as most would consider. They're a government sponsored monopoly. They receive massive tax breaks, and direct funding from the government to build out infrastructure (tax dollars spent on laying pipe). It's utterly absurd to think that they have anything in common with a truly private entity.
You want to know why comcast is allowed to grow so large, completely and solely control local markets for both TV and Internet delivery? Because the government allows it.

Yes, Comcast is entitled to control both the content you consume and how you consume it. It's their property, they earned it fair and square and can do whatever they want with it. To suggest otherwise is COMMUNISM!

Yet another person who has no idea what "communism" means. The people, actually, should own the means of production, both of their work and their entertainment. To say otherwise is to be at the mercy of someone else. No, thank you. A social democrat government where people come first over profit is the goal. Absolutely screw libertarian ideals. They are as bad as the fascists because they believe collusion between government and corporations is OK, despite their being against big government.

Hey Einstein, once "the people" take over the means of production, WHO THE HELL DECIDES WHAT TO DO WITH IT???

WHO DECIDES what "people come first" means?

Stalin?

Kim Il Sung?

Pol Pot?

I know damn well what "communism" means - the bloodiest governments in all history were Communist.

A Communist is someone who read Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx.

Hey Einstein, once "the people" take over the means of production, WHO THE HELL DECIDES WHAT TO DO WITH IT???

WHO DECIDES what "people come first" means?

Stalin?

Kim Il Sung?

Pol Pot?

Larry Ellison?

Steve Jobs?

Dick Cheney and the Halliburton directors?

I know damn well what "communism" means - the bloodiest governments in all history were Communist.

A Communist is someone who read Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx.

I don't think you can read at all. Or you might have read what people like Attila the (non-communist) Hun did. Or Montezuma and his buddies. Or any number of satrapies, caliphates, kingdoms and so forth did.

both cablecos are generating programming from scratch, and Comcast bought both NBC's production arm as well as Universal Studios. there may be an overlap in control between TimeWarner Cable and Warner Bros. studios.

this is a BIG deal. cue the "in Soviet Russia" jokes, because they would have more control over what you see worldwide than just the Cyrillic-language channels.

When fracking made running nuke plans unprofitable, they pushed off maintenance on their nuclear fleet. Now that they're at the point they must do maintenance or risk a meltdown, they are engaging in lots of labor and finance chicanery with their distribution business units to funnel cash into their Nuclear Fleet. Because they are a Chicago based company and very close to the local government, if you are an outsourced employee, they have carte

you dont think that the government would jump in and say that the largest producer of content and delivery system is "too big to fail" and then give them tons of our money to ensure that they can keep raping us with fees? I can see the government doing that

A better description would be that information flows around me like a river during a flood and I reach down from the bank and scoop out a little bit for a sip on a hot day. Then I turn around and take a walk in the woods. Control that, Comcast!

A better description would be that information flows around me like a river during a flood and I reach down from the bank and scoop out a little bit for a sip on a hot day. Then I turn around and take a walk in the woods. Control that, Comcast!

You may want to avoid analogies about consuming something when you are arguing that you don't consume something else......

Consume
verb
1.
eat, drink, or ingest (food or drink).
"people consume a good deal of sugar in drinks"

Good point. But a quick sip isn't exactly something I depend on, right? That was the real point. If one source of marginally interesting information flow gets ruined, there are plenty of other things to do. My mental well-being doesn't depend on 'consumption' of what Comcast/TWC might control. Maybe I'll just take the kayak down to the river and paddle around for a bit, take the dog for a walk or take the bike out for a spin. Comcast/TWC can DIAF.

Good point. But a quick sip isn't exactly something I depend on, right? That was the real point. If one source of marginally interesting information flow gets ruined, there are plenty of other things to do. My mental well-being doesn't depend on 'consumption' of what Comcast/TWC might control. Maybe I'll just take the kayak down to the river and paddle around for a bit, take the dog for a walk or take the bike out for a spin. Comcast/TWC can DIAF.

So when you go down to the local polling place, assuming that you even vote, do you just pick randomly?

As far as motion pictures were concerned this was decided in 1948 (Paramount vs United States). Simply put, movie studios can not own movie theaters. Another interesting anti-trust action was the dissolution of United Aircraft and Transportation into Boeing the aircraft manufacturer, Pratt and Whitney the aircraft engine manufacturer and most importantly United Airlines. So a single company can not both manufacture airplanes and run airlines. Unfortunately I fear our current political climate is so corrupted by the concentration of wealth that these actions could not occur today.

Amen. I work for a small ISP/IPTV/VoIP provider and the plain truth is this: a few big content providers take 80% of our customer's monthly cable bill. They essentially tell us how much we have to charge and what our channel package structure needs to look like. Sure they provide the illusion of choice: sure you can carry our popular channels in HD, all you need to do is add these 10 other junk channels in the same bundle and charge your customers 25 cents for each of them... Sure you can carry the Olym

we the users and genrel public know Comcast is a fucking cancer that needs to be cut out threw competing company's. but thanks to bad laws and red tape nobody can even get into the cable market even if they wanted to. why has the fcc not came in and said no yet. internet should be getting cheaper and faster but when nobody is there to undercut one another well it just get more expensive wile the back end is getting cheaper. tell you what fine let them merge but with the removal of all there anti compete clauses in all there areas. letting new company's come in and destroy there monopoly bet they wont want to merge then.

While people don't directly have a choice, indirectly many do - anyone near the border of the respective service areas. Go two towns over and it's Comcast land. In my case, apartments in Comcast territory were automatically excluded from consideration. If Comcast ever got so terrible that people fled their areas for Time Warner, it could actually affect property values. As it is, apartment complexes in Fios territory advertise this fact and are able to charge just as much as the ones 5 miles closer to t

COMCAST is a greedy fat little blood sucker that takes all that technology has to offer and screws it up with moronic menus and programming lineups, lethargic and useless VOD and database features, inconsistent policy, and BAIT AND SWITCH quarterly revision to service fees that require hours of wasted time to correct. They run infomercials on every channel, refuse to stagger the programming over the clock and calender, and advertise on packages that were once commercial free. It boggles the mind how their

I'm sorry, you seem to be confusing content provider with content producer.

NBC makes content. Comcast is simply an expensive, poorly maintained pipeline. I'm just saying, if you're going to be angry, be angry for the right reasons. As for getting what you want content wise, all the things you listed have their own issues. Netflix has limited selection due to licensing issues, Amazon is expensive if you're following 2 or more shows, and Youtube..well, come on, it's Youtube.

I'm not really for it but i'm not against it either, most of the people here yelling against it are against it just because they don't like comcast. Comcast has a lot of faults but I don't see how refusing this merger will make things better or worse for anyone, It will not really stifle competition because the companies don't really compete with each other and Time Warner has just as much problems as comcast does its just different problems. If i had one major thing to gripe about comcast its their de

is there anyone here that is in favor of, or will even defend the rights to do this merger?

I will make an attempt at offering a defense, mainly based on the premise that it won't make any difference either way. Both companies suck, and they will still suck about the same after they merge. What needs to be done is dividing up the infrastructure builders from the service providers. That is how things will be fixed, and stopping this merger (or letting it happen) won't fix anything. Spending effort on it is a waste of spending effort.

I would ask "Have they learned nothing from the 'too big to fail' debacle, but I fear the answer.

These companies are already very large. We're talking about adding 10 million customers. That's 3% of Americans (assuming each customer is only 1 person, but since these "customers" are really households you can multiply that by 2 or 3). Comcast already has 20 million subscribers.

I don't see any reason to allow one company to deliver service to 30 mill

The internet was our garden. And a beautiful garden it was. Sure, some fed agency created it, but let's face it, they used a fraction of the lot and we didn't really care for their supersecret bases they had littered about. There was so much empty space in between! And that lot we cultivated. We built a few nice trees and in their shadows we relaxed, we planted beautiful roses and yes, a few fruits and vegetables because, hey, it's always better if you grow it yourself. And... heh, well, yeah, we had a few corners here or there where we grew that "special weed", ya know, but nobody really gave a shit, it was just us.

We were pretty good gardeners. Well, you pretty much had to be in those days, if you didn't know your way 'round with rake and shovel, you didn't really get much out of it. Still, we were quite happy with it. So happy actually that we thought we should share that. I mean, there's so many people out there who don't even know just how great the garden is! And we invited them in. They looked around and, well, most of them didn't quite "get" it. Sure, it was nice, here or there, well, if you're into botany, that is, but it's kinda hard to get around and find your way through the jungle, and using a machete wherever you go, phew, hard work! But a few of them stayed. They didn't quite know what they do, but we handed them a few saplings and some seed and some actually managed to learn a thing or two about gardening. Sure, of course a few smartasses tried to steal our stuff, but we usually didn't have much of a problem to whack them with our shovel and get our stuff back. And, heh, yeah, we, too, went into each other's yards and played some pranks on each other, painted their roses black and the like, but it was all in good fun! And hey, they sure liked our... ya know, "special stuff". They still had no idea how to grow it, but they were quite willing to help us share everything with everyone, as long as they got their share, too. And, well, why not, pass the blunt!

That was about when the corporations noticed that, hey, where did all the people go? They took a look at the garden and they went batshit crazy. I mean, sure, we knew that it's great, but we never saw anyone go so insane about it. They saw it as the next big thing to make money with, and we laughed. Money? With this? Dude, you can't make money out of a system based on freedom and sharing! Everything in here is free. Yeah, in both ways.

True. You can't make money in such a system. Unless of course you change the rules. And changing the rules, they could.

I can't help but think that this must be how the natives of the US felt after they were "discovered". Because we had to face that there are suddenly areas in what we considered OUR garden where we couldn't go anymore. Worse, something that was the staple of our culture, going to a guy who did something great and asking him for a sapling of his wonderful tree. Became anathema. Instead of you SHOULD imitate and build on top of mine, the new creed was you MUST NOT. This rule, of course, did only surface after they themselves took from our gardens what they could possible rake together quickly. You might understand our utter disbelief and of course outrage when we noticed that turnabout is not fair game.

Well, we have had our share of trolls and nuisances before. Long before we already had to deal with people who trampled through our gardens or were a general pest. Our solution was simple, we took our superior gardening skills and whacked them from here to next week with our shovels 'til they either learned to play nice or left for good. This didn't work out so well this time. No, not because they had the better gardeners. But they didn't need to. They had a much more powerful weapon in their arsenal: The law. First, they ensured that the laws would benefit them, and then they used it against us. And despite how despicable it may be, we have to admit that it is quite efficient to have others take care of your battles, especially wh